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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24821371">a sure antidote to all manner of weariness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/trill_gutterbug/pseuds/trill_gutterbug'>trill_gutterbug</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Shame Edward Little Power Hour, opium dens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:15:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,050</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24821371</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/trill_gutterbug/pseuds/trill_gutterbug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>On leave, Des Voeux takes Edward to one of his favourite haunts.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Charles Frederick Des Voeux/Lt Edward Little</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fingerbang #1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a sure antidote to all manner of weariness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the prompt: "cutlery." And for Poose, of course. </p><p>Title from <a href="https://www.shatnerchatner.com/p/the-best-thing-about-very-old-recipes">here</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With the pipe still warm in his hand, Edward leaned back on the pillows. He crossed his bare feet, then uncrossed them, blinking. The candle overhead flickered behind its hanging red paper shade, spinning slowly. He breathed out between his teeth. </p><p>Des Voeux’s smug voice came from a curious distance. “Alright, Lieutenant?”  </p><p>Edward nodded. The lantern smeared before his eyes. The frayed cutouts in the shade threw floral imprints onto the damask wallpaper - blurred, leaping images of lotus blooms and fat pomegranates. “Mhm,” he said. Then, ashamed of his imprecision, he cleared his throat and tried to sit upright. It was a losing war. He got onto one elbow before having to subside. He tried to cover for himself. “Yes, Mr - Yes, I’m -” But that was useless, too.</p><p>He <i>was</i> alright. Against all his fears, against the clamour of his heart as he’d followed Des Voeux through the discreet alley door into this deep warm nest of vice, against every sordid tale of opium devilry transmitted by the moral authority of the service, he was alright. He was tremendously alright. He would have laughed in utter disbelief if he’d been able to locate the correct sequence of muscles and nerves. </p><p>“Look at him,” came Des Voeux’s voice again, full of smirking. “He’s alright.”</p><p>A laugh from someone else - one of the men who’d been here when they arrived. The blonde one, perhaps, or the handsome Turk who’d been sucking the blonde one’s nipples? The ginger with his kit off in the corner? The two boys entwined on the setee? Edward had avoided observing anyone too closely as they came in, mortified into unwarranted manners, though he’d known in advance, more or less, what to expect. Des Voeux had made a particular face when he invited Edward along, the face that always presaged some thrilling display of degeneracy. Edward’s vitals had snapped-to at that look like a pack of marines porting arms. He’d guessed at the flavour of depravity from the start, knowing Des Voeux as he did (intermittently, contextually, heatedly), yet still it had shaken him. He hadn’t been to India or China, as Des Voeux had - his own degenerate habits were rather domestic in nature, and tended to occur clandestinely, and he was always at loose ends about politic behaviour, particularly under erotic strain. Had it been impolite to avert his sweating gaze from all these sprawling, louche men? Mustn’t they <i>want</i> to be seen? Wasn’t that the sum point? His head lolled on the cushion. He smiled, for none of it mattered. Not really. </p><p>A rustling near his feet, then a touch. Des Voeux’s hands climbed his thighs, lingering first around his knees, then his hips. Edward twitched, spontaneously sensitive. He watched the rotating lotus blossoms. The pipe was taken from his limp fingers. </p><p>“Here,” said Des Voeux, awfully close, leaning above him. His hair was mussed from its pomade, roguishly loose across the forehead. The collar of his coat was unbuttoned, but still high around his chin. His bright gaze smarted Edward like the tip of a whip. More touching. Edward felt it through a rocking purplish expanse, a sensation like riding at best point of sail into a beefy groundswell. He obeyed Des Voeux’s hands and rolled over, pressing his cheek to the pillows. Though he’d flinched earlier at their stains, they seemed stuffed with the plumpest goose feathers. His head sank into them. Down the gulf of his body, reaching round his hips, Des Voeux undid his trousers with a familiar motion. “You don’t mind, sir, do you?” </p><p>Edward lifted onto his knees to let his britches descend. He didn’t bother to answer, both because the question was rhetorical, and because he could not. His throat was incapable of sensible activity. Anyway, he thought he knew what came next. He mumbled something that wasn’t a word, only a grateful sound of longing. Then - yes, oh - then Des Voeux’s sharp little mouth lipped at his thigh, his buttocks. Edward moaned into the musty silks. He couldn’t form a thought to demur at how Des Voeux’s wet mouth sought him out, ferreting to the centre of him. The air in the den was warm, sultry with smoke and breath, but still cool where it touched him between the cheeks. A spasm of something like shame seized him for an instant - the thought of the men behind him looking, no doubt, over Des Voeux’s shoulder with prurient regard. How was his aspect from their direction? Surely not flattering. Certainly undignified. His belly tightened, the tendons of his groin and navel pinching him. He panted, dizzied. If he’d been able to comprehend the weight between his thighs, he might have been hard.</p><p>“There we are,” said Des Voeux, pausing his attention to pull Edward apart with both thumbs. “Just as I left it.” </p><p>He was never quite kind to Edward, always telling a joke with his eyes while his mouth said something else. The joke, invisible from this position, still made Edward blush. He shuddered at the flirting stroke of Des Voeux’s tongue as it descended upon him again, feeling the jest of it. With his shoulders and cheek leaden on the pillows, he rocked back against the first lick. And the second, the tenth - the thirtieth. He moved, heavy and inexorable as that groundswell, his body stretching away, thick like honey drawn cold from the jar. He whined, trembling at the rich slopping of Des Voeux’s thorough tongue. He was torpid in all other parts, alight in only this one. Behind him, other sounds he couldn’t comprehend. Voices, murmurs. The smoke drifting around his head spoke a foreign, beckoning dialect in his ear. His hands twitched on the silk, clutching at nothing. His spine tensed hotly with every deep, prying lick, until he couldn’t understand where his body ended and Des Voeux’s began. Nothing had ever been more immaterial, or more fundamental. He dissolved under the weight of the question, disassembled, his pieces scattered.</p><p>“You’ll forgive me, sir,” mumbled Des Voeux eventually, withdrawing to speak against the tender middle of him, “for my lack of table manners.” His grinning teeth nipped, just lightly, right where they oughtn’t, and made Edward sob. “But it seems it’s the supper hour, and I find myself without a single piece of cutlery.”</p>
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